Gaming machines are popular entertainment devices. Present gaming machines provide an opportunity for a user to play a variety of popular games on the machines, such as fruit machines or slot-type games, video adaptations of standard card games like poker and blackjack, and many other types of games.
Modern gaming machines are coupled to a gaming network that performs many management type functions, such as accounting, game tracking, player tracking, and bonusing. Typical gaming networks are able to generate written reports at various times. For instance, a gaming network may print daily, weekly and monthly summary totals of items of interest to a network operator, such as number of players on the network, average amount bet, average theoretical hold, etc. Such reports may take time to be scheduled, printed, delivered, and analyzed. Thus, any modifications to the gaming network based on the printed reports may take place long after the data that appears in the reports was collected.
Embodiments of the invention address these and other deficiencies in casino gaming systems.